Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle Reading App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

A haunting southern tale of long-buried family secrets by the New York Times bestselling author of Under the Tuscan Sun and Under Magnolia

In her celebrated memoirs of life in Tuscany, Frances Mayes writes masterfully about people in a powerful and shaping place. In Swan, her first novel, she has created an equally intimate world, rich with striking characters and intriguing twists of fate, that hearkens back to her southern roots.

The Masons are a prominent but now fragmented family who have lived for generations in Swan, an edenic, hidebound small town in Georgia. As Swan opens, a bizarre crime pulls Ginger Mason home from her life as an archeologist in Italy: The body of her mother, Catherine, a suicide nineteen years before, has been mysteriously exhumed. Reunited on new terms with her troubled, isolated brother J.J., who has never ventured far from Swan, the Mason children grapple with the profound effects of their mother's life and death on their own lives. When a new explanation for Catherine’s death emerges, and other closely guarded family secrets rise to the surface as well, Ginger and J.J. are confronted with startling truths about their family, a particular ordeal in a family and a town that wants to keep the past buried.

Beautifully evoking the rhythms and idiosyncrasies of the deep South while telling an utterly compelling story of the complexity of family ties, Swan marks the remarkable fiction debut of one of America’s best-loved writers.

Now with an excerpt from Frances Mayes's latest southern memoir, Under Magnolia

"Kitchens of the Great Midwest" by J. Ryan Stradal
Each chapter tells the story of a single dish and character, at once capturing the zeitgeist of the Midwest, the rise of foodie culture, and delving into the ways food creates community and a sense of identity.
See more

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It seems like there's a law that every novel set below the Mason-Dixon Line must feature a family secret, a beautiful dead mother, and a contested paternity. Also, iced tea. Swan, the debut novel from memoirist Frances Mayes (Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany), is pretty standard stuff. J.J. Mason lives like a hermit in the woods outside the town of Swan, Georgia; his sister Ginger Mason works as an archaeologist in Italy. Their family has been in Swan forever; the whole town mourned when Caroline, Ginger, and J.J.'s mother committed suicide. Now the town joins in shock when Caroline's body is mysteriously and crudely exhumed. Ginger returns from Italy; J.J. comes into town. Over the course of a week in July 1975, and against a backdrop of townspeople, relatives, gossipy old biddies, and mill workers, the siblings explore the dark history of their mother's death. The book is competently done, and Mayes is clearly enjoying her break from the Tuscan sun--she especially seems to enjoy folksy-yet-Gothic Southernisms: "Who'd ever think someone that pretty could up and die? ... Just goes to show how quick it is from can to can't." Despite the book's grisly grave-digging, though, Mayes unearths nothing new. --Claire Dederer

From Publishers Weekly

Combining elements from her own life abroad and at home, Mayes presents her first novel, after a series of wildly popular Italian memoirs (Under the Tuscan Sun, etc.). The author, a Georgia native, has much working in her favor: she's built up a legion of loyal readers through her nonfiction, and this tale which takes place in a Steel Magnolias-like sleepy Southern town offers the tried and true matters of family saga, mystery and Americana. The Mason family has owned cotton mills and other valuable real estate in the town of Swan, Ga. for generations. J.J. and Ginger Mason lost their mother, Catherine, when they were children. Now they are in their early 30s, and Ginger is living where else? in Tuscany, working as an archeologist; J.J. is still in Swan, a sort of reclusive mountain man who spends his days sketching the arrowheads he finds on fishing trips. They're reunited when bad news surfaces: Catherine's body has mysteriously been dug up, 19 years after her death. Ginger flies home, and she and J.J., while at a loss as to whodunit, begin to unearth previously unknown details about their mother's life. With the steady if not necessarily riveting mystery serving as a base plot, Mayes weaves various side stories involving the unfortunate demise of Ginger and J.J.'s father and the fate of their grandfather's mistress, among others. Mayes's writing is smooth and her homespun evocations of the steamy South are moving. And although the story begins to lose its oomph after 200 or so pages, this is a pleasurable read that will please Mayes's devotees.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

More About the Author

Frances Mayes has always adored houses, and when she saw Bramasole, a neglected, 200-year old Tuscan farmhouse nestled in five overgrown acres, it was love at first sight. Out of that instant infatuation have come four marvelous, and hugely popular, books: the bestsellers Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany, In Tuscany, a collaborative photo-textbook with her husband, the poet Edward Mayes, and photographer Bob Krist, and Bringing Tuscany Home: Sensuous Style From the Heart of Italy, another collaborative book with Edward Mayes and photographer Steven Rothfeld. All four highly personal books are about taking chances, living in Italy, loving and renovating an old Italian villa, the pleasures of food, wine, gardens, and the "voluptuousness of Italian life." The third book in her Tuscan trilogy, Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life (due out in spring 2010), is about Tuscan seasons and Mayes' reflections on her Italian life. She was awarded the Premio Casato Prime Donne for a major contribution in the field of letters in 2009.

Her first novel, Swan, a family saga and mystery, returns Mayes to her childhood home of Georgia and was published in 2002. A film version of Under the Tuscan Sun, starring Diane Lane, was released in fall of 2003. Frances Mayes was the editor for the 2002 Best American Travel Writing. She is also the author of the travel memoir entitled A Year in the World: Journeys of A Passionate Traveller, which immediately debuted as a New York Times bestseller in 2006. Working again with Steven Rothfeld, she published Shrines: Images of Italian Worship, also in 2006.

A widely published poet and essayist, Frances Mayes has written numerous books of poetry, including Sunday in Another Country, After Such Pleasures, The Arts of Fire, Hours, The Book of Summer, and Ex Voto. Her work The Discovery of Poetry: A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems is widely used in college poetry classes. Formerly a professor of creative writing at San Francisco State University, where she directed The Poetry Center and chaired the Department of Creative Writing, Mayes now devotes herself full time to writing, restoring an historic garden and to her "At Home in Tuscany" furniture line at Drexel Heritage. She and her husband divide their time between North Carolina and Cortona, Italy.

Biographical note from Steven Barclay Agency

"Tuscany may have found its own bard in Frances Mayes."-- The New York Times

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

Being a daughter of the South myself, I can honestly say the characters in this book are uniquely southern. I was constantly going, yes, I know that place -- I pass that on my way home -- I have a friend from there, etc. She did a perfect job in her characterization, and her sense of place is phenomenal. The story itself was very easy to read mostly because it pulled you in and made you interested in what became of these people. The plot was interesting and had enough twists to keep you coming back for more. One thing I loved was Mayes' ability to surprise. I would be reading along, engrossed in the story, when suddenly I would have to back up and reread a portion (usually at the end of a chapter) because what I read couldn't possibly be what she wrote. And yet it always was -- interesting bits about the characters that just got slipped in. Altogether, I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting a good read.

I finished Swan yesterday and her characters are with me still- for me a sure sign of a good novel. The Discovery of Poetry by Frances Mayes is one of my very favorite books. I was interested in how her novel would be. The settings are wonderfully described, brought alive and as I have already indicated, the characters appealing and engrossing. Good read !!

Swan is truly a wonderful novel. I've been waiting to see what Frances Mayes was going to do with fiction, after the incredible success of her books on Tuscany, of which I'm a big fan. And what's here in Swan is the same incredible writing-that's one of the ingredients, perhaps the main one, that has been the strength of her books for me. Sure, Tuscany is a great place to be, but how she described it and how she described herself changing in relation to what she was doing, that's what has made her books sit among the few I can re-read with great pleasure, almost as if I'm reading them for the first time. Swan is like that too! I just finished it and know I'll be back at it before too long. The story certainly keeps your attention but it's the way the story is told, the language, the writing, that for me was the real pleasure. She has this ability to put the reader right there, as in her Tuscany books. Swan's a truly uplifting novel, a story about coming out of painful discoveries and being changed by them. I'm not from the south, and have only been there briefly, but the characters seemed real to me and the descriptions of the landscape and what they mean to the characters was really well done.

This book left the reader with too many loose ends. There were many mysteries in the story... and too many left unsolved. Yes, it would make for good discussions, but left the individual reader adrift and without any closure.

I'll admit that I didn't really get into the story until about page 110 or so, but at that point, I couldn't put the book down. The writing is very well done, and Ms. Mayes has many turns of phrases, or little descriptions, that so capture the romantic part of the South, that it makes the story all the more enjoyable. And the ending is absolutely beautiful. Just excellent. I can't imagine a better ending, especially since you so sincerely care about the two main characters - J.J. and Ginger.

A couple of points for the prospective reader:

1. This really isn't about a mystery, it's about the impact of a mother's suicide has upon her grown children and their relationships.

2. If you read this expecting a mystery that will keep you up all night, you'll be sorely disappointed.

3. Recognize that this presents the rural South in the 1970s from the standpoint of the white middle class; you'll have to work hard to find any mention or hint of discrimination or race relations, so if you're looking for a fuller portrait, this is not the book for you.

4. The last half of the story - it's pacing, the story's evolution, etc., more than make up for what I felt was a bit of a slow beginning.

Mayes' writing is utterly beautiful. If you love language as only a poet can deliver, well-drawn characters you're unlikely to forget, and a story that pulls you in from the very beginning, don't miss this lovely, haunting novel.

This is a book by my favorite author, Francis Mayes. Francis took me back to a fascinating but sad, fictional story about a family that could have been from her own deep Southern roots. Her creativeness came forward as she wove a mysterious multi-generational long held secret into a place where the characters were able to accept the outcome and move on. I loved the descriptive, colorful contrasts between Mayes own life in Italy and her native Georgia. I enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

I enjoyed this story a great deal. I was surprised at how likable the characters are, and how well they reflect the inhabitants of a Southern small town. I read only a few novels each year as I tend to prefer non-fiction. So when I find a novel with pitch perfect characters who engage in surprising ways in a fascinating setting, I am delighted.

If you read to the end of the book, you'll find closure on all the sub-themes. As Robert Boswell has pointed out in his excellent book on writing fiction, The Half-Known World, that the story is an algebraic product of the writer's art and the reader's engagement. The fiction "writer wishes to make his characters and their world known to the reader, and he simultaneously wishes to make them resonate with the unknown." In this way, the reader completes the story from their own experience, perceptions, and desires. This may be partly why people react so differently to author styles and stories.

Though I would love to see another novel from this author, I suspect I must now move on to her poetry. Re-reading the books on Tuscany are already a given.